A man from Cricklewood who duped a former Tesco executive into stashing £188,000 worth of cocaine under her bed has been jailed for four years.

Graham Huddy, 37, of Brent Terrace, tricked Nicola Benhaim, 41, into hiding a kilo of the class A drug at her home by claiming the package was cash.

Snaresbrook Crown Court heard he teamed up with Nathen Idehen, 38, from Hampstead, and Lorik Recica, 31, who asked her to look after some money for him as a favour as he ‘couldn’t keep all of it in the bank,’

Benhaim, a close friend of Idehen’s wife, ‘naively’ agreed to hold the cash without asking questions and Huddy delivered it to her home in Enfield.

When cut and sold into smaller packages the drugs, which were 76 per cent pure, could have had a street value of up to £188,000.

The gang was caught when police officers intercepted Huddy with the drugs in the front passenger foot well of his Audi A3 before they could be supplied to a third party.

All three admitted one count of attempting to supply cocaine.

Idehen was sentenced to nine years and Recica was jailed for seven years.

Benhaim, a former communications executive for Tesco, was acquitted of the same offence.

She told jurors she never looked inside the package and had no reason to suspect the box had anything other than cash.

Judge Mr Recorder Richard Sutton, told Huddy: “Y had a lesser role, but because of the features of what took place not only on December 8, but also on October 30, when you were delivering these drugs to Ms Benhaim you are considered to hold a higher position – albeit you have a lesser role.”

A forfeiture and destruction order on the cocaine was granted by the judge.

An 80-year-old grandmother was called a “f***ing bitch” in a “foul outburst” by her alleged murderer months before she was strangled with a lawnmower cord in a Colindale allotment shed, the Old Bailey heard today.